Journal
by Whattheydonttellus
Summary: Millenniums after the events of the 4th Era Dragon Event, a young girl claiming to be the dragonborn's journal is found. Witness the events of the dragon attack through the eyes of a young Khajiit who was banished from her home, and live the life of a scholar who will go to any length to protect the journal.
1. Chapter 1: A New Age

Journal

Chapter 1: A New Age

9E 105, 15th of First Seed

Dinurek placed the golden claw into the etchings on the circular door. The rings around the passage rotated until they bore matching symbols, the symbols of the snake. Dinurek stepped through the passage, but his feet did not meet stable ground, instead he fell down a steep slide of dirt and rocks. When he hit the bottom, Dinurek stood up and dusted himself off.

"Dinurek!" Azeri, Dinurek's best friend called out. "What happened?"

"I just fell. There's a drop off at the door."

"Are you alright?"

"I'm not sure, I think I might have hurt my leg."

"I told you this place was dangerous. First those drougrs, now this. The professor was right, this place isn't safe for research." The professor Azeri spoke of was Professor Matimi, the instructor of alchemy at the Mage's College in Windhelm. "We should go back."

"But we're so close to the end. We just got past the-" Dinurek was cut off by a large rock falling from the ceiling. The rock was immediately followed by violent shakes in the ground. Both Dinurek and Azeri were thrown to the cold, stone ground. After a minute or two, the quaking seemed to stop, and everything went silent, except for the Drougr Overlord, that is. "That can't be good."

Azeri slid down the same slope on his feet that Dinurek had slipped down on his ass.

"Still happy we didn't turn around?" Azeri said as he took out his 1800s style revolver, a modern weapon of the time.

"Look out!" Dinurek jumped out of the way of an incoming battle axe swing. He pulled a sword off his back and took a defensive stance. Azeri took several shots at the drougr, the bullets penetrated the armor, but were weak and slow by the time they ripped through the steel. The drougr swung again at Dinurek, but the young man countered with his sword. The force of the blow was enough to push Dinurek back a few feet, but he was still standing. "A little help here?"

"Im trying! I'm trying!"

"I'll distract it, you go for a head shot, aim for the unprotected part of his face."

"Got it." Azeri took three large steps back to get a better line of sight. While Dinurek got the attention of the Drougr Overlord, Azeri brought the gun up to firing position and aimed right for the skeletal beast's head. "Ugh, c'mon, hold that thing still, I don't have a shot."

"This isn't that easy, ya know!"

"Just keep him from moving for a half a second!" Eventually Dinurek got the drougr in one place and held his ground.

"Now!" Azeri pulled the trigger. A bronze bullet soared through the air, it spun through the rifled barrel and into the drougr's eye socket. "That's what I'm talkin about!" Dinurek called out as the Drougr Overlord toppled to the ground.

"I think that was the last of them, we're at the end."

"Finally, we are at the end of Bleak Falls Borough... Now what?"

"Let's have a look around. We did come here to explore, after all." And with that, they both set about, searching through chests and earns until Dinurek called out.

"Azeri, I think I found something!" Dinurek stood in front of a long black wall with rather strange markings, almost like claw marks.

"It's incredible. What do you think it is?"

"Some kind of ancient language, or something. What about you?"

"Maybe a code of some sort, or a secret message, but your guess is a good as mine."

"Let's get some pictures and bring them back to the college."

"Right." Azeri took a camera out of his pack and placed it on a level rock. The camera, like his gun, was 1800s make, and was not very advanced. It took almost two minutes to get a good photo. They spent a half an hour taking pictures of each bit of the wall. "Alright, that should do it, let's get back to the college, Arch-Mage Adurel will want to see these himself."

Just then, Dinurek saw something glimmer. It wasn't gold, and it wasn't a weapon, those were the only shiny things he would guess to be down in a dungeon. When he walked closer, he saw it was a book, dirty and torn, but still in tact. He picked it up and saw that the glimmering was coming from the words on the cover written in silver ink, "-Natani Asarek-" the book was black other than the name on the front. He opened it up and found that the book was a journal, so he looked the first entry to see its date. It had been decades since anyone had been down in these catacombs at least, so the book had to be older than him.

"By the Divines! Azeri I found something else!"

"A dusty old book."

"It's full of diary entries, and look at the date. The fourteenth of Sun's Dawn, 201, fourth era!"

"Damn, is the thing really that old? That's almost two thousand years ago."

"It gets better, this girl must have been pretty important," choosing a random entry he read aloud.

"Frostfall 11 4E, 201

Today, Klesser and I were called to the Jarl of Whiterun while we were at the inn in Riverwood. I love the little town, so small and slow unlike any hold capitol, I could use that kind of change after the hell storm we just got out of, maybe if Klesser and I get married we could come back and settle down here. We got to Whiterun on foot and entered Dragonsreach where a feast had been prepared for us, well, mostly for me. Balgruuf said it was for fighting off the dragon that attacked the outer city walls. We stayed and ate, but not for long, Klesser and I still had our duties to protect Skyrim from the dragons. I wanted to stay, but I guess the Dragonborn doesn't get the same luxuries of the nobility in the capitols."

"Dragonborn? I thought that was legend." Azeri said in marvel of the journal.

"Me too. Now c'mon, let's get all this back to college, we can go over this journal on the way." They made the short walk to Whiterun, the only city in Skyrim still with its same name from the fourth era. They had rooms at the Yellow Sabercat, Whiterun's newest tavern and inn. When they entered the gate, Dinurek and Azeri decided they would go back to the inn for the night, then bring all that they had discovered back to the college in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2: Findings

Chapter 2: Findings

9E 105, 16th of First Seed

"You two went into Bleak Falls Barrow after I specifically told you not to?" The Arch Mage scolded Azeri and Dinurek. "You could have gotten yourselves killed. Dinurek, I can see you doing something like this, but Azeri, I expected better behavior from you." The boys had both earned opposite reputations in their short lives, Azeri, a wood elf, was always a peacekeeper, calm, and followed the rules, while Dinurek, a nord, was irresponsible, short tempered, and was always getting into trouble.

"Apologies Arch Mage. You may not have given us permission to explore the barrow, but we did find something that you may be interested in."

"And what might that be?"

"This." Azeri pulled the pictures of the wall out of his pack and laid them out on the arch mage's desk. "We found this wall in Bleak Falls Barrow, it was covered these scratch marks. It looks like a code or a language or something. We were hoping you might know what it is."

"I've only seen these markings one other place. An old book of legends about the dragons. I'm going to look into this with the librarian of the college, this is an extraordinary find boys. Is there anything else you found in the dungeon?"

"Nothing but this book. It's a diary from the fourth era. Apparently this girl claims to be Dragonborn." Azeri handed the book to the Arch Mage who flipped through the pages.

"Incredible. You two should hang on to this, I want you to read and study it very closely. We may be able to link it with the dragon mark wall."

"You got it." Dinurek took the book back and walked out with Azeri. Later that night, Dinurek opened the thick journal in his room and began to read.

Sun's Dawn 14 4E 201

I woke up with a jump, must have been another bad dream. I keep seeing giant beasts in my dreams, they look exactly like the dragons in the paintings dad had around the house. He never told me why he loved those pictures so much, all he said was, "these painting will one day be as big a part of your life as they were of mine."

Anyway, Cassi got me this journal, she wants me to write in it about my adventures all over skyrim, but so far the only adventures I've been on are hunting and fighting the occasional bandit camp. I don't know why Cassi finds it all so interesting, maybe because she stays in that castle under the strict protection of her guards and never sees the light of day. Speaking of that castle, I came to the realization that I'm a lot happier out here than I ever would be at the 'home' mother banished me from. I should the princess of Elsweyr, but mother decided to take her trip to skyrim eight and a half months pregnant, leading to my birth outside of the Khajiit homeland. Mother always thought that no outsider could rule, so she banished me. Bitch.

Natani closed her journal and sealed the inkwell. It was late and she needed some rest. The next day she walked out of the Bannered Mare with her backpack and left the city of Whiterun. She had received a letter from an old friend telling her to come to Solitude. Natani did not want to disappoint Jordis, so she set out immediately. She walked the stone road to Solitude, stopping in small towns for supplies. Most places she stopped were welcoming and happy to see a new face, but all her life she met the occasional racist asshole that would not even look at her because she was a Khajiit.

Just after buying food from a friendly trader in Rorikstead, Natani had made her last stop and expected to arrive in Solitude within the next few hours. A few kilometers out of Rorikstead, Natani came to an old mine that was clearly out of commission, she thought about getting a closer look, but suddenly a man in heavy armor walked out of the mine carrying a pickax and a bloody mace, a bandit. The young girl ducked behind some rocks and pulled out one of her knives. She peeked out to look at the bandit. He was a tall, muscular Orc with an angry look on his face. Natani had heard of some bandits hiding out in this area and had racked up quite the bounty. She was no bounty hunter, but Natani was short on coin. She could kill the bandits, loot the mine, and collect the bounty in Solitude.

Natani vaulted over the rock and threw her knife into the man's stomach, she then charged him, jumped up, claws seeping into his stomach, and plunged her sword into his neck. She drug the body into the mine and found a good place to observe. The mine was just a long tunnel that gradually got deeper with different arms that moved out away from the main pathway. There were quite a few bandits moving about in the deeper parts of what looked like a former silver operation. Natani crept out from her hiding place in a large patch of plants and up to a stack of crates. She saw two nords talking in front of her, one with a sword and one with an axe. She could have easily taken them on in close combat and she loved a good sword fight as much as the next fellow, but doing so would immediately attract the entire mine's attention, and that was a bad idea. All things considered, Natani reached for her bow, after all it was her favorite weapon.

The Khajiit drew her bow back as far as she could, aimed, and exhaled right before she released the arrow and watched it sink into the closest man's heart. The axe wielder watched his fellow bandit die, but he had no time to react as the archer had already knocked, drew, and loosed another arrow into the nord's throat. She dragged the bodies into one of the first arms of the mine and left them. Moving down the mineshaft she dispatched several criminals and searched for the leader, who was to be brought to Solitude alive. As soon as the young feline made her may to the end of the long, deep tunnel she pulled two thin Elsweyric rapiers from her sides and rushed in the last room. There were three men, the first two, both Argonian, stood by the door, while the nord stood against the back wall. She took a half second to evaluate the situation before the men drew their weapons, that short period of time was all she needed.

Natani slashed out to the side with one of her swords, slashing one of the argonians' throat. The other reptilian man swung his axe at the young attacker, but the swing was careless and his feet were too close together, allowing Natani to take full control of the fight. The Khajiit easily ducked under the blade kicked the man's feet out from under him, then she stood up and held the tip of a blade to the argonian's neck.

"Please, have mercy!" The reptile begged. Natani pulled her weapon away, but her actions were met with an attempt to stab her in the leg. The feline kicked the dagger away and dropped her sword into the bandit's chest.

Natani noticed that the third man had not moved, the nord just stood there, watching. "Impressive." He said as he eyed the long, thin blades that hummed as they sliced through the air, and effortlessly penetrate the thick Argonian scales.

"Don't get too envious yet, I haven't even started kicking your ass." Natani said with a smirk.


End file.
